I have trouble with this too. My beds are extremely full. There aren't any perfect answers. I have started new beds with bulbs, but mostly I am squeezing things in around existing plantings and its hard to have an idea of what it will look like when it is done. I just scatter them in around my perennials, trying more for color flows than anything else. I use a lot of the same kind of bulb in an area, then move on to something else in another spot. They gradually spread and intermingle a bit on their own. The only thing I try to do is not make perfect little circles, but raggedy little clumps or swirls followed by singles more spread at the edges.

I just recently posted this picture. I thought it might help here. Also reposted the tulip picture (here I use only a few tulips and a dozen or so hyacinths) in a very heavily planted bed.

Spiderwort Sweet Kate with Ipheion to the right, Fritillaria meleagris at the back, Anemone Blanda White Splendour to the left & miniature daffs just starting at the back. Tall bluish stuff in the front is Allium foliage which doesn't bloom until close to June. This is in my hosta bed. If you look hard you can just see some of the 2 dozen hostas starting to put out leaves.

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Same bed in summer seen from the front & right side.


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Same hosta bed edged in small daylilies. All the DLs are also interplanted with small bulbs (Iris reticulata) which bloom before the DLs even poke out of the ground.

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Tulips & Hyacinths with Sedum (around a tree) & Catmnint. Thin leaves to left are crocus left overs.

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Same bed in July

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Leslie, I love the frits in the first picture. I've planted in some in a naturilizing location, and hope they do as well. How long have you had them in that bed?

George

That hosta bed is lovely. I am only striving to arrange so many plants together and so skillfully - without going overboard.

I planted tulips this fall and I am afraid I might have made my "groups" too small. I bought five to six tulips of each variety and planted them in groups of threes and twos, among perennials (nepetas, iris, geraniums etc.) In an attempt to achieve some kind of order I planted Triumphs together (color coordinated) and then at some distance the lily-flowered ones, and finally the Black Tulip with Angelique ;-) I also tried to stick to one colour palette - from white through pink to purple and black, with preference for the striped ones (can you believe it.. I have everything in there but solid yellow and solid red). Then - too late - it occurred to me that I have too many varieties (25) and the planting will be a mess. Unfortunately, no room is left among those perennials for adding more bulbs, so from April to June I will be learning from my mistakes.

How many varieties of tulips would you plant in one bed, approximately 7 x 15'?

Geoforce,
I checked my bulb spreadsheet. I started with 50 frits from White Flower Farm for $7.15. They were purchased in the fall of 2002. They were planted in a narrow strip near the patio about 6 inches by 24 inches and have spread out on 3 sides to 15 inches by 40 inches.

Anna Beth,
Thanks for the complement about the hosta bed. The truth is that hosta bed has had so many renovations that it is a family joke. Nobody ever gets things the way they want the first time, or sometimes the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th time!

First off the tree was small, and surrounded with sun-loving groundcover junipers planted by a landscape firm. I edged the area in annuals and planted a few sun loving perennials between shrubs. (The garden faces due South and there is/was no canopy or shade cover, so everything in the yard is/was geared to sun lovers). As the tree grew it provided more and more very dense shade.

The junipers got shabby and were eventually removed, but I couldn't get the stumps out, so I planted around them. Eventually they rotted out enough I could pry them out of the ground. Very messy job - squished everything in the area. The sun loving perennials got less and less sun.

When I eventually decided to remake the bed into a shade bed, I read all kinds of books on shade plants, made my list of plants, and then made several serious mistakes. (BTW, although I had not gardened in shade in many years, I once had an urban shade garden for 15 years. But this time I wanted a fancier garden with more variety - pride goeth before a fall).

In my enthusiasm I selected too many varieties of plants from my local nurseries, and bought them in too large a quantity. Lastly I ordered a marvelous collection of hostas from a well-known catalog company and ended up with half-dead hostas, many so tiny I could hardly see them (or find any roots).

So I added annuals and planted minor bulbs where the hostas didn't make it. Some of the hostas grew like crazy (the big plain green one in the picture, which clearly isn't what I paid for, did especially well), while some of them lived but seem permanently stunted. Other hostas turned out to be bigger or smaller varieties than I thought they would be. Just about every plant that I bought in excess did really great, while the single plants were less enthusiastic.

Since that time, I have bought some new hostas, removed many other perennials & some hostas, and re-arranged endlessly. When I saw your email I had just come in from outside where I was standing with clipboard in hand in front of the shade bed plotting out yet more changes for next spring - the bed's too crowded right now to even figure out what is where! LOL

BTW, I have also tried the white, pink, purple, & black tulip thing. Actually it is quite pretty, a little messy, but nothing will clash badly. The main problem, or advantage depending on how you look at it, is that the tulips will bloom when they want to & not necessarily when you thought they would. :~) Some will do better than others. Just make sure that you make notes on what you liked and what did well for you. These days I usually restrict myself to two varieties in my front yard beds, usually 100 of one and 50 of the other. These tulips are used as annuals in a semi-circle some 3-4 ft deep and 8 ft long. You'd have to double/triple that for your 7 x 15 ft bed if you wanted solid tulips.

In the backyard I use smaller quantities of tulips here and there, but mostly rely on daffodils for their perennial quality & many minor bulbs which work better in my mixed perennial shrub borders. Bulbs are for fun - don't worry - your planting will be lovely. Good Luck. Leslie

P.S. I am the last person to ask about color schemes - I am fundamentally unable to use just one color of anything, anytime or anywhere.

That's a funny story, and a familiar one. I invariably buy too many different plants, carried away by their beauty and vigour. I console myself that I still have a lot of room to make new beds, so I would be able to transplant whatever does not fit where it is planted. But I have not yest trusted any mail order company, I buy all plants personally selecting them at nurseries. I recall only once I was sold mislabeled bulbs (white tulips grew from the bulbs I had bought as Princess Irene), otherwise I have not been disappointed with the plant material. Plants only failed me due to poor soil and drought.

Actually I was hoping to have a succession of bloom in the tulip bed, I just wish I had purchased fewer varieties and more bulbs within each. I will be making notes, especially that some of the tulips I bought this year had "perennialized" in my garden before. I want to ID them in order to buy more in the following years.

Thank you for the words of encouragement regarding the colour scheme. I would not yet go for just a single variety/two varieties because I am planting in a mixed border, which probably resembles your backyard. Also, the flowers would be gone sooner, and 200 bulbs would be more costly. My garden is not tidy enough to be worth of such an expense. I guess in the spring I will have to work out my own definition of tulip excess :-)

Best regards,
Anna

This is a very nice thread. I read recently that gardeners have a tendency to hone in on the deficiencies in their planting schemes (maybe in part to rationalize the purchase of yet more plants - ha ha!), rather than see how others would see it. I have come around to thinking that its very, very hard to create an ugly collection of bulbs and emerging perennials. Everything is so fresh and perfect, at a time that your soul is starved for the sight. I also find it hard to visualize what my "drifts" look like and I'm sort of clumsy and heavy handed with chucking bulbs in around the fading perennials, but they look damn good anyway. Hard to go wrong, unless you just line them up like little soldiers. Also many "authorities" say that groups of 5, 7, 9 are more pleasing to the eye than even numbers and I have found that to be true. I'm thinking of limiting or phasing out the large tulips in my perennial beds in favor of smaller bulbs and species tulips just because they will come back and their smaller stature seems to go so well with emerging shoots and more delicate spring plants like violets, epimediums, polemonium, etc., and then they can get covered up more easily as the perennials grow. Big tulip leaves never really seem to get camouflaged and they are so thick and blue compared to the emerging plant colors. Also (blasphemy!) I hate daylilies, which seems to be the most popular co-planting to hide daffodil foliage.

The key I've found is to take photos of the gardening beds early in the season. It's surprising how many opportunitie there are for 'way more masses of bulbs' before the larger perennials come up. It's a lot easy to plan where to plant from photos than looking at the overgrown late season beds that appear 'crowded'.

We can never have enough. If there is a square foot, then we plant. We have thousands of returning bulbs but also use hundreds of the cheaper bulk package tulip and daffodil bulbs as annuals and compost them once they finish blooming.

The biggest mistake with planning beds is mixing various varieties with some scheme in mind. We mix lots of varieties but for lots colour all spring. Even similar types of tulips can have offset blooming time. Don't get fussy. Keep it natural. Over plant rather than underplant as you can easily pull out a bulbed plant but you can't stick one in. Too many is better than not enough. We, however, could never have too many. Our garden is an insane riot during the bulb blooming season. We want to look out and enjoy hundreds of blooms on any given day from the first crocus through to the last tulip.